Walking Liberty Half Dollar Values

This is page one of the historic value trends
for individual coins of the Walking Liberty Half Dollar series. Price
movements from 1950 to the present for each Walking Liberty coin are
reported.

The tables are organized to help coin collectors find Walking Liberty
half dollar value trends which have marched ever higher over a long
period of time.

The links below are designed so that those of us who admire Walker
Halves can readily zero in on specific dates of interest. There is one
table for each and every date, covering a range of grades.

The rarest dates of the Walking Liberty Half
Dollar series are the 1916, 1916-S, 1917-D and 1917-S
(both having mintmark on obverse), all 1921 issues (P, D, and S), and
the 1938-D.
Small wonder, then, that these dates have the strongest record of value
growth of the entire "Walker" group.

The Walking
Liberty Half Dollar is much more than just numbers and percentages.
We encourage collectors to learn more about the origin of this popular
coin by visiting the Walking Liberty Half Dollar introductory page.

You will find value trend online reports for
other US coin types by
going to the Coin
Value Tables online listing page. You can also see the list of
available reports by clicking the "Get Historic US Coin Values" at the
upper right hand corner of this page.

In the 1950s, grading
practices were radically different from what we have today. A coin's
condition was described using simple adjectives such as "Very Good" or
"Uncirculated". Accordingly, numismatic references of those times
conformed to the same set of adjectives to approximate retail coin
values. Varying distinctions of Uncirculated (today's equivalent of
MS-60, MS-61, etc) and Proof were recognized in some advertisements and
auction bills by employing modifying descriptors such as "Brilliant
Uncirculated" or "Choice Proof", for example. However, with no clear
point of reference or consistency on how the modifying descriptors were
invoked, most publishers resorted to listing values for only one
"Uncirculated" grade and one "Proof" grade.

The 70-point numeric system (G-4, VG-8, etc.) in widespread use today
was popularized by the American Numismatic Association in the late 1970s,
an era when coin values
were escalating dramatically, most notably for high quality specimens.
Vague descriptors such as "Choice" and "Brilliant" were replaced by
more precise numerically determined grades. Thus, finely differentiated
grades like MS-60, MS-63, and MS-65 became commonplace, and by the late
1980s, the practice of assigning a numerical grade to indicate quality
was universal (this does not imply the 70-point system eliminated
grading inconsistencies, but it did help to stabilize the coin
collecting hobby).

In February 1986, the ANA changed its grading interpretations to match
the tightening standards demanded by the marketplace. This meant that
many coins correctly graded as MS-65 in the early 1980s became MS-63 or
less, so as to be consistent with the newly revised interpretation.
Conversely, a coin graded after 1986 as MS-63 was about equal in
quality to an MS-65 before 1986. Thus, the Mint State prices published
in numismatic periodicals prior to 1986 are not directly comparable to
those published later. The Coin Value Tables of this website relied
heavily on periodicals from before 1986, but we did not attempt to
compensate for the revised grading standards of 1986; we reported what
we found. One must take this into account when studying trends for an
MS-65 coin from, say, 1980 to the present. On the other hand, because
of the dearth of Mint State price estimates published prior to 1986,
more than 98% of the Coin Value Table data is not affected by anything
mentioned in this paragraph!

The Coin Value Tables trend data for Walking Liberty half dollars
reflect the historic availability of numeric grades. For the 1950-1985
rows, the values in the "G-4" column correspond to the "Good" listing
of those years, "VG-8" corresponds to "Very Good", and so on. The
"MS-60" column records the "Uncirculated" value reported during those
same decades. Starting in the 1980 row, "Uncirculated" grades are
broken down into MS-60 and MS-65 designations. Later years indicate an
even wider range of "Uncirculated" grades, as data became more
available.

For those interested, we have a coin
grading section with more details on the evolution of grading coins.

Lately, the Rare Coin Values Index is behaving like it thinks its the Dow Jones. That would be an exaggeration of course, because the Index is not climbing at THAT meteoric pace, but it has now closed…